


noli me tangere

by athousandwinds



Category: 16th Century CE RPF
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am/And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	noli me tangere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iphianassa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphianassa/gifts).



> Many, many thanks to voksen, who was an excellent beta and extremely patient with my whiny arguments.

It was during the summer of the year of Our Lord fifteen hundred and thirty-four that Henry Percy returned to court.

It was a flaming June, with the skies brilliant blue overhead and the grass soft green beneath his feet. The ladies who passed him on the gravel paths were laughing together - perhaps at him, the too serious, too weak Earl of Northumberland. They were dressed in bright colours and one of them danced rather than walked: jubilant, triumphant, and so achingly like Anne that he almost stopped to watch.

Instead, he shook his head and walked away. He made a depressing contrast to them, dressed in sober black. There was nothing for him to do here; he had only to give his report and then return to Alnwick. They were renovating the east wing, for in winter the wind blew colder than a fire could combat and, more importantly, the populace were becoming restless. If the worst came to the worst -

Anne was coming towards him. She looked - Henry saw her rounded belly - she was dressed in deep crimson, her overskirt split to reveal a black kirtle. They were not summer colours - she had once explained this to him, and he remembered every word she'd ever said - but Anne had never cared about what other people wore. He had attended an assignation with her dressed in the silliest clothes he owned, one of the Cardinal's little jokes, and she had never said a word, only made him take off the hat. Anne was coming towards him.

"Your Majesty," he said, and swept her a low bow. He risked a glance upwards, and saw that she had stilled in her slow walk. He did not quite dare to look at her face, but he could see her slender hands clenching white on her prayer book.

"Lord Percy," she said, rather blankly. "Please rise."

He did so; she stared at him, the expression on her face hard to identify. When she spoke, her voice was sharp and abrupt. "What are you doing here?"

"I - " Henry began, taken aback. Anne held out her hand. It was trembling slightly; no one else would have noticed, but Henry was used to watching her closely.

"Come," she said. "Walk with me a little while. Tell me, what is your business at court?"

"I come to report on the northern situation," Henry said. "There's unrest in the villages. Some of the gentry are unsatisfactory." He tried not to look at her abdomen; the more he avoided it, the larger it seemed to grow.

"And you left Northumberland? Why?"

All the way from Alnwick, coming himself had seemed so reasonable that he'd hardly thought about it. Asked why, Henry was left mildly flummoxed. "I wanted - " He looked into her face and saw her eyes, big and dark against her pale skin. "I - "

"Don't be simple, Anne," said an unexpected voice. For the first time, Henry perceived that he was not alone with her, that a man had been following them. And a woman, too, so like them both that there must be a relation. "He's not going to say what the problem is in front of _us_."

Anne threw him an exasperated glance. "Lord Percy, you may say anything you like in front of Lord Rochford or Mistress Shelton. They understand the concept of discretion admirably."

"It would be unfair to tell anyone before I have spoken to the King," Henry said, feeling as if he had successfully manoeuvred around the issue. Anne closed her eyes briefly and Henry swallowed down an apology.

"Spoilsport," said Rochford. Henry hated him.

Anne was smiling again, however, and at Henry, who could barely breathe. "And how is your lady countess, my lord? In fine fettle, I hope."

Henry shut his eyes against the quiet, hastily cut-off snort from behind him. Mistress Shelton had a sly sense of humour. His face was burning red, but he endeavoured to answer calmly. "She is very well, Majesty."

"I would ask after your children, but - " Anne sighed, sounding sincerely sympathetic. "These things are so difficult."

"You have been blessed, Majesty." His wife had laughed when she heard the news, shrill and mocking, as if Anne had committed a fault in birthing a healthy daughter. It was more than she'd ever managed, and he'd said so. He'd even raised his voice.

"I have been," Anne said. There was an undercurrent of fierceness to her voice. "I do hope you are happy, Lord Percy. It would be terrible if you were not."

For a moment, Henry could not speak. He was thinking of long nights alone in Alnwick, hating everything but Anne; of Mary Talbot when he married her, bitter and resentful of him for looking away from her; of the vicious satisfaction obtained from taking a fat Cardinal into custody; of ten years spent re-reading dispatches and royal proclamations just for the sight of her name etched in ink.

"I am very happy, Majesty," he said, and bowed again. Because he couldn't look at her, he looked at Rochford, who was regarding him not unsympathetically. Rochford knew a thing or two about unhappy marriages, perhaps.

"Excellent," Anne said, as cool as autumn. "And I am the happiest of women, Lord Percy; between us we make an excellent pair."

"Majesty," he said again, breathless with pain. He gazed at her face; it was not beautiful, he knew it was not beautiful, but he had seen her smile and he knew she was.

"Here is the King," she said, and for a moment Henry Percy thought she seemed very tired and very determined. Then she was smiling; nothing like he remembered.

"Your Majesty," she said, and curtsied low. They all followed suit, and when Henry rose, the King held Anne's hands enveloped in his paws. He blinked and looked away. "I was just telling Lord Percy how happy I am," she added.

"To see him?" the King enquired, clearly expecting a particular answer. Anne granted him his wish.

"No," she said, smiling up at him. "Merely how happy I am."

The King gave his great, roaring laugh and Anne threaded her arm through his. "Lord Percy has news for you, sire."

"Well, then, Percy," the King said, "George will show you to my apartments. My dear?" For Anne was tugging at his arm.

"Sire," Anne said. "Let Lord Percy walk with us that we may speak a while longer with him. He has come such a long way; it would be a shame to deprive him a minute of your company."

"A sweet thought," said the King. Henry thought he was watching her narrowly with those close-set eyes of his. "Well, Percy?"

Henry's eyes dropped from Anne's face to her belly. She still walked delicately - of course she did - but it was a stark reminder. He cleared his throat. "As it pleases your Majesty."

* * *

"So. What was that all about?"

" _George_ ," Anne said, cross. She put aside her embroidery - it was taking the shape of an elaborate Tudor rose - and motioned to her ladies to leave the chamber. Mary Shelton paused anxiously and Anne raised an eyebrow.

"Mary," she said, not without kindness, "George is my _brother_. Only the foulest mind would think there was any impropriety in my being alone with him."

"Yes, Majesty," Mary said, and scurried out with the rest.

"I almost feel sorry for Henry Percy," George said, seating himself comfortably in a high-backed chair. "No, scratch that. I do feel sorry for him. He's got a wife and you to deal with."

"He didn't have to have a wife," Anne said. There was something dark in her voice. Even the King wouldn't have liked to push, assuming that it was within the realm of possibility for her to have discussed Henry Percy with him. George sighed.

"You gave in, too."

"I shouldn't have. I _let_ them do that to me."

"You've never _let_ anyone do anything to you," said George, with a wryness that came from years of pummelling at Anne's hands. She'd never taken kindly to him trying to lord it over her, even in childhood.

Anne was laughing, loud and sharp. "No? Allow me to give you a short autobiography, George. At twelve, I was sent to the Habsburg Netherlands in order to please the Archduchess and further Father's career. At thirteen, he sent me to France to serve Queen Mary. When I was twenty, he was going to send me off to _Ireland_ , for goodness' sake."

"It's not _actually_ the back-end of the world, you know," said George, highly entertained.

"Perhaps," Anne said dubiously. She closed her eyes and used her fingers to smooth out the lines on her forehead. "But I did all of this for him. I obeyed; I was a good daughter."

"For various definitions of _good_ , certainly."

"I only wanted one thing for myself," she said. "And they took it _away_ from me. How could they do that? _Why_ should they have been able to do that?"

"Because that's the way the world works," George said.

"It shouldn't."

"Perhaps not," said George, with some sympathy.

"It doesn't," Anne said, rising from her chair with the grace of a queen. "I've made sure it doesn't." She fingered the richly-decorated wall tapestry with one hand, the other splayed over her belly; sweet and triumphant. "Do you think there's anything I can't do tonight?"

"Spend it with Henry Percy," George said promptly.

"I only forgot myself for a moment," Anne said tartly. "Besides, I'm not stupid."

"Neither's the King."

"He'd forgive me if I bore him a boy," said Anne. "And I will."

"You can't control that, sweetheart."

"Yes, I _can_." She had turned; her fingers gripped his arm with crushing intensity. George looked at her; his brilliant, ambitious sister. Sometimes he knew how Henry Percy must feel: there was no one else in the world. Intellectually, he knew that it was merely that Anne had a knack for making one feel that way.

"I believe you," he said, quiet and truthful.

"Tonight is mine," she said, her voice soft and calm for once. "Even Father, even the King - they can do nothing. This is my night. So was last night. So will tomorrow night be."

"For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen," George said, only half-joking. Anne gave him a glare from beneath her eyelashes for the heresy. Then she smiled.

"They have no power over me," she said.

**Author's Note:**

> In 1523, a scandal occurred when it was discovered that Henry Percy, heir to the earldom of Northumberland, was in love with and wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, the daughter of a knight. The couple were separated by Cardinal Wolsey: Percy went on to marry Mary Talbot, the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The marriage was notably unhappy, even by the standards of the time; Anne Boleyn, of course, married Henry VIII.
> 
> In 1530, Henry Percy arrested Wolsey for treason.
> 
> Anne Boleyn had her first miscarriage in July 1534, which was the beginning of the downward spiral her career took thereafter. She was eventually put on trial for witchcraft and incest, and although she defended herself ably, a guilty verdict was inevitable. After delivering his vote, Henry Percy is recorded to have fainted.
> 
> The version of the Lord's Prayer George quotes is inaccurate: the line appears only in Protestant versions. While this is appropriate for Anne Boleyn's reformist tendencies, the line would probably not have been spoken in the English Church under Henry VIII.


End file.
